M2N-E and Phenom II X2 560 - speed mismatch

rhaupertApr 2, 2011, 10:03 PM

Having a problem with the ASUS M2N-E and Phenom II X2 560 (3.3 GHZ). It's an AM2+ board that is supposed to be compatible with AM3. I installed the 5001 BIOS update that supports the Phenom II, but I have a problem. The speed of the processor was reported at 803 mhz with the default settings. And it sure seems to run at that speed because it is slow in games. I changed the BIOS settings to manual and picked 200mhz and 16.5X so I would get 3.3 G. So when I look at the BIOS settings and the Windows 7 processor display it says 3.3 g but Nvidia System tools says the cpu is running at 803 mhz and it still runs slow in games. I tried doing a 3% overclock and it resulted in slow game play with Nvidia system tools saying it is running at 827 mhz.

What the heck is going on here? Has anyone experienced this before?

I've tried reloading the BIOS update and clearing the CMOS several times. According to the ASUS website these two should be compatible with the 5001 BIOS update but it isn't working.

Its a cool n quiet issue. In the bios make sure cool n quiet is enabled, most amd's do not work right without cool n quiet enabled in the bios. The processor driver detects cpu loads and changes the cpu speed as needed.

On some boards, like my nvidia chipset msi am2 board, the msi chipset software conflicts with the amd processor driver. Uninstall the nvidia system tools, it is known to have conflicts with this cpu driver. I know it conflicts on my system so i uninstalled the msi/nvidia monitoring/overclocking software but my board is alot older than your board is.

I am running winxp, on xp you install this driver separate. I looked in my catalyst settings and the amd site does not have a driver for win7, so it must be included with win7.

Run a benchmark that you can compare online or to another computer to verify, something like the built in benchmark with dirt2 will work.With cool n quiet it is normal for it to run at 800mhz when not gaming or working the computer, but it should not hurt speed or fps when the cpu is needed. The cpu should throttle back up to the speed you set it at in the bios.

Do not run without cool n quiet for the long term, its ok to disable it for a few mins for troubleshooting. If the cpu fan dies and cool n quiet is disabled the system can't throttle down to save itself.

I know it sounds stupid, but on am2/am3 sockets the cpu cooler has a plastic bracket around it, once someone brought a computer over wanting it fixed said it was running slow. Sometimes the cpu cooler catches on the plastic and does not seat onto the cpu. The cpu overheats and the board enables cool n quiet even under full cpu load to throttle the cpu. I took the cpu cooler off and seen it had not even touched the cpu grease. so the poor cpu was running without a cooler. after i seated it properly it worked fine. You can check this without removing the cooler, give the cpu cooler a gentle twist to see if it feels like its slipping on grease to ensure it has contact with the cpu.

Thanks for all the help. I tried everything but it still wasn't running properly. Finally I stumbled upon a fix in another posting. I installed the latest version of Nvidia System Tools and edited the default profile to up the multipler from 4.0x to 16.5x. Then I created a rule to load the new profile whenever Windows starts.

Now games run more like they should, but I'm still a little disappointed at how it is running. But it may be I need a video card upgade as well.

Sounds like a similar trouble with nvidia system tools, i never tried to troubleshoot it or fix it i just uninstalled it and it seemed to fix my system. Uninstall all the board/chipset monitoring software because i think it messes up the cool n quiet driver. It seemed to do that on my old am2 nvidia chipset msi board. I even had a bsod from the msi/nvidia monitoring software. I don't know why, i'm not a programmer, searching like you did might help too. well good luck hope you can fix it.